A Beginner's Guide to the Export_Descr_Unit

[cbt33]

Nevermind, I think I have it. Notepad all the way for any future readers, including myself if I forget. I didn't happen to catch that notepad had a replace feature which I had thought was only in word and wordpad. Oops .

[Gigantus]

Word and Wordpad

wrong editors because of formatting. Use notepad or notepad++

[The Border Reiver]

I didn't happen to catch that notepad had a replace feature which I had thought was only in word and wordpad. Oops

Thank goodness for ctrl H. Very thorough tutorial, this has saved me a lot of trial, error, testing and retesting!

[Garafax]

Hey everyone, first of all great tutorial!

I've been having trouble getting my edits of the EDU file to translate into the actual game. I've added the [io]
file_first=true to the prefrence file and changed it back to read only and still no changes! Does anyone have an idea of what could be causing it?

[uanime5]

Great tutorial but I would like to add something about the 'ship' line. A 'light warship' cannot sail in deep water but a 'heavy warship' can. So a heavy warship (eg Carrack) can sail across the deep water to America but a light warship (eg Dhow) cannot. I have not tested the effects of 'flagship'.

Edit I noticed a major error. You claim that the unit after the 'soldier' is how the unit looks, however that is determined entirely by the armour upgrades. This entry tells M2TW which animations to use (in this case the Swiss_Pikemen's animations). So if you replaced the Swiss_Pikemen with Javelinmen the unit would throw it's pike, rather than look like a Javelinman.

[drogoth232]

First of all great tut! But I have a question.
I dont know if this belongs here or in TATW as a new thread but I wanted to put Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli as one unit.
In the officer line in edu for TATW I put:

officer aragorn
officer legolas
officer gimli

I wanted to know that this format is correct. Also will the unit be given a model at the start of the battle? Here is all the code:

 
type             Three_Hunters_Bodyguard
dictionary       Gondor_Infantry_Bdg      ; Gondor Infantry Bodyguard, Exceptional
category         infantry 
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          Dismounted_Chivalric_Knights, 16, 0, 1.275
officer          aragorn
officer          legolas
officer          gimli
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, very_hardy, can_withdraw, no_custom, general_unit 
formation        1.2, 0, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health      1, 3
stat_pri         9, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, sword, 0, 1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  12, 9, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        5
stat_ground      -1, -2, 0, -3
stat_mental      17, disciplined, highly_trained, lock_morale
stat_charge_dist 6
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 650, 200, 75, 75, 650, 4, 100
armour_ug_levels 4, 5
armour_ug_models gondor_infantry
ownership        sicily
era 0            sicily
era 1            sicily
era 2            sicily
recruit_priority_offset    65

I have tested this with the code battle_model aragorn, battle_model legolas, battle_model gimli. Here is what I put in my historical battle as a test:
faction sicily

character Aragorn, named character, male, age 30, x 242, y 127, battle_model aragorn, battle_model legolas, battle_model gimli
army
unit  Three_Hunters_Bodyguard    soldiers 50 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit  Mounted Rangers    soldiers 10 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit  Three_Hunters_Bodyguard    soldiers 10 exp 0 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

I know for a fact that alone battle_model aragorn will work (its tested). When the battle starts there are three to four invisible models with shadows on the ground... I really want to be able to do this so as to save space for my other historical battle (max 8 armies I had about 10).

[Gigantus]

- You can add those three officers into the EDU (provided they exist in the modelDB)
- You can only assign one battle model at a time for a character. This will be for the general and NOT for the officers!

[VINC.XXIII]

Hi
I would know how determin the ammunition that have a unit?number of javelin, arrow....
Thanks

[Emperor Charlemagne XII]

do you have to unpack yuor game to edit the files?

[Gorrrrrn]

For the sake of completeness one should add the stat_stl line that can be put after stat_cost.

It's used to define for each unit the minimum size for it to be considered "alive".

You can add this to whatever values best suit your mod - I'm experimenting in the hope of finding a way to reduce the number of itty-bitty armies that litter the campaign map,
slowing things down as the AI wastes time chasing them down to finally destroy them.

will have to wait and see how well it works but in my first battle I was defeated by rebels and had 10 spear militia, 11 levy archers and 16 fyrd spearmen survive the actual battle.
But not the aftermath - simply disappeared, which is about right with min values of 15, 20, 20 respectively.
(I'm thinking of what the minimum number a unit would need to be to make a difference in any major engagement.)

From what I've seen so far this only kicks in after a battle, if you army survives and you merge units and get a tiny number of men in some units left over they stay alive, so you can rebuild them.

[confused german]

Hi.
A little addition to the tutorial, because I've played around with this one a lot and experienced the effects quite well I think:

power_charge: This improves the charging ability as if the unit had more mass. They penetrate deeper and the charge duration is lenghtened a bit. Especially powerful for cav; for infantry you nearly don't see it as long as the unit has no overpower mass value.

Thx and keep up,

confuzed dsherman

[Babygod22]

I have a problem, I make my rocket launcher unit have 4 peices and increase it ammunition from 108(orriginal) to 1000. But then they only fire at the enemy once or twice, and not even all together, some of them just reload or stand there, And the ammo doesn't seem to be increased at all when I set the number of roket launcer back to 2.
Do i have to change a few more things so they can shoot continously and what is the maximum number of ammo an artillary unit can have.

[slowbro]

The final number (14, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 1) is used when the unit has multiple weapons. Basically, it sets a preference.

that's not true

[Moon]

This is from RTW's EDU guide which is still relevant for Med2 as well.

[lethality] : Percentile chance of a soldier to kill an enemy (assuming his strike has found its target). The higher the lethality, the more the kills and the less the knock-downs/knock-backs during a battle. Greatly affects the speed at which melee battles are resolved, since higher lethality means less missed hits and greater casualties in short time. It is not used in ranged combat..

[slowbro]

This is from RTW's EDU guide which is still relevant for Med2 as well.

thats lethality in RTW
Skeleton compensation factor in melee. M2TW
and yes you're right

[Moon]

An interesting discussion on this subject took place Here.

[Taiji]

that's not true

You're right, it apparently doesn't affect weapon preference on dual melee weapon units.

This is from RTW's EDU guide which is still relevant for Med2 as well.

Relevant in places but irrelevant in others. This is one of those places where it's irrelevant.

As far as I know, we, as a modding community, are still clueless about what 'skeleton compensation' does.

[Emperor Tom]

"ownership – Basically, you can list factions or cultures here. Any faction or culture listed here can purchase the unit in “All” era custom battles. In addition, if you try to give a faction the ability to train a unit without giving it ownership, it will not work."

And yet...it doesnt work. Atleast not where im sitting. Works fine in RTW however even with a fully patched and unpacked M2TW it doesnt...why?

[Gigantus]

"ownership – Basically, you can list factions or cultures here. Any faction or culture listed here can purchase the unit in “All” era custom battles. In addition, if you try to give a faction the ability to train a unit without giving it ownership, it will not work."

Incorrect in M2TW as far as I know. You need to list the faction in the area line(s) below the ownership for that. Example:

type Armored Swordsmen
dictionary Armored_Swordsmen ; Armoured Swordsmen
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Heavy
banner faction main_infantry
...
armour_ug_models Armored_Swordsmen, Armored_Swordsmen_ug1
ownership england, slave
era 1 england
era 2 england
;unit_info 13, 0, 22

[Moon]

Are you using file_first?

Setting up io.file_first
with a text editor add the following to the top of medieval2.preference, this file might be set as read only so remove this attribute make your changes and make sure you reenable it or the game will set it back to its default setting.

[io]
file_first = true

The easy way to check it's working is to give the ownership of a mercenary unit (Mercenary Frankish Knights as an example) to a specific faction and try a custom battle, it should be available at the bottom of the unit roster.

Yeah, I believe Gigantus is right.